7 comments:

"How many Cdns really believe that women's rts depend upon a pretence that children are not human beings until the moment of complete birth?"

What a disingenuous ass.

For a lawyer, he sure is stupid. Globally, a person is identified as a legal entity by their birth certificate. His proposal would require that this legal inconvenience be changed, no? Would the state be burdened with creating an infrastructure to issue conception certificates? And what of the costly ramifications of doing so, given that so many pregnancies result in miscarriages? The number of conception and death certificates would be staggering.

Not to mention all the criminal investigations that would be legally required - which would demand extra paper work from health care professionals, in ALL cases where a zygote, embryo or fetus failed to develop, was not alive after birth, was miscarried, etc. etc.

I just sent this to my local paper (and I claim 'misogynist merry-go-round' as it's really fun to say):

Dear Editor,

Since 1988 the women of Canada have enjoyed full security of person, the ability to decide for themselves when/if and how many children they will have. In its widsom, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that women and their healthcare providers, without the interference of government, could make this most personal of decisions. On Thursday April 26th that right is being called into question during a debate in Parliament thanks to MP Stephen Woodworth's Motion 3-12. Mr. Woodworth would like to see a special committee formed to examine the question of fetal personhood, with the ultimate desirable outcome being the granting of personhood rights to fetuses, and therefore the outlawing of abortion.It is absolutely horrifying to me that in 2012 this is even being considered; my rights are not up for debate, regardless of the contents of my womb. Am I or am I not a full citizen able to make my own health decisions without government interference? The Supreme Court has already decided, not just in 1988 but multiple times since then, that a woman and her fetus cannot be legally separated, and that to grant personhood to a fetus is to remove a woman's right to bodily autonomy, safety and privacy. Mr. Woodworth should know better than to open this particular political can of worms, especially since our Prime Minister has promised not to reopen the debate at all. And yet here we wait, in 2012, getting ready for another turn on the misogynist merry-go-round.